“Welcome to the final exam, this also marks the end of your first year at the Academy.” Professor Silvertongue said as he entered the class. “Before we begin does anyone have any questions?”

“How are the grades going to be imparted since the teams aren’t equally balanced?” The question was asked without fail every year as not everyone was informed by their family or backers.

“While each team will have an examiner following them, they will be grading each and every one of you individually.” Professor Silvertongue explained. “Your individual contribution as part of the team will be scored for your results. I do hope that those of you who have tried to join people much stronger than yourselves have something to provide.”

As this was an individual evaluation everyone was allowed to bring their companions with them. While bringing them was heavily encouraged they had all been warned that any who brought will have their dynamic with the bonded companion subject to evaluation as part of the exam.

“If there are no more preliminary questions?” the professor said as he looked around the room. “First order of business, Ajax will not be participating in this exam.”

Ajax had been informed of this change beforehand so he wasn’t at all surprised. From the looks of more than a few people they had also been informed or they had outright expected this to be the case.

“Why is he exempt from this?” The question was quick to follow the announcement.

“The exam requires you to tackle the dungeon in the most efficient way possible while maintaining personal and team safety” one of the proctors answered this time. “It does not require you to take into account the safety of other teams.”

“Leaving aside the imbalance that will be formed in any team that actually has Ajax as part of it, even having him by himself will make scoring the rest of you a nightmare as he will actively be hunting down everything around him in moments.” the professor said, “Not to even mention that his most efficient route at this point will be to simply trigger the obelisk from inside a cave or with his back to a cliff and simply kill everything as it rushes towards him.”

Nobody had anything to say when that point was brought up. If they were taking the exam in the first floor of the Goldmine a similar strategy might be feasible from the top two teams, seeing as the Exam was not in the Goldmine and that the level of the enemies ranged from thirty to thirty-five everything changed drastically.

“Secondly, the entire team will be subject to a major point deduction should your scorer ever be forced to intervene to save any member of the team.” the professor continued.

“What if someone is purposefully trying to lower their team's score?” Ajax very much agreed with the question.

“Then it will be a good thing that the rest of the team learned the lesson about properly vetting their team members and all it cost them was the score on the exam and not their lives.” one of the proctors gave the harsh response but it had the desired effect as everyone fell silent and reviewed their choices. “That being said the teams aren’t finalized until you set foot inside the dungeon.”

Unlike most exams there was no such thing as a set group size, at most there was a ten person limit to the group sizes but everyone knew the maximum size was a pitfall that would make it impossible to show off enough for a good score. There was no lower limit however and someone could go in by themselves should they choose to do so.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Thirdly : should the floor take on the feeder variant, a three day limit shall be placed on the exam. Otherwise there will be no time limit, though a penalty will start to accumulate should the team not leave in an appropriate time frame.” the professor continued. “And it saddens me that this has to be pointed out, not to mention that I will be actively trying to expel any who fall under this category but if you any one you persist in remaining in the exam past the point where your scores have dropped to zero as a result of overstaying your examiner will notify your team to simply leave the dungeon.”

Abbot Silvertongue was particularly peeved on this point as there had actually been a team to do just that the year he had taken the exam, the annoyance he felt at waiting an extra two weeks for the exam results because of them was something he still hadn’t managed to fully forget.

With all of that out of the way the entire class started making their way towards the dungeon entrance. It could be argued that some of the students weren’t quite ready to delve the stronger of the capital's two dungeons, having started the year as level twenty-threes some had only managed to improve three levels meaning they could end up with a nine level difference.

At the same time some of them had progressed as many as five levels after starting at twenty-four. Despite most classmates starting with a two level difference at most at the start of the first year in the academy the gap had been known to increase as high as ten levels by the third year between the highest and lowest in the class.

“Are you coming to cheer us on?” Benedict asked Ajax as he moved together with the class towards the dungeon.

“No,” Ajax denied. “That was the initial plan I had in mind, but my house was given the delve slot after the exam so I will be making use of that.”

“I still don’t get how you delve so often through random dungeon floors.” Lexi complained. “You go every chance you get, with both crafter and clearance teams. Don’t you get tired of delving?”

“I won’t be going past the first floor today either.” Ajax tried to reassure her. “I’m just taking some of the potential retainers my brother and his wife have managed to round up for a trial delve.”

“I still think you spend way too much time in the dungeons.” Lexi said, it was a point of view that was shared by both Sam and Silvia. Ajax had only managed to appease them by telling them he will be halving the time he spent delving once the Academy took a break seeing as he won’t be joining the class delves every cycle.

“Is that Theron?” Benedict asked as he spotted the bull beastkin that stood two heads taller than most of the crowd. “How did you manage to convince him to join you? I know for a fact a few other houses were aiming for him.”

“Talked with him after our fight, made a small wager about me being able to crush the rest of the tournament in a similar manner to what I did to him" Ajax admitted openly.

“It could be argued that you didn’t outright stomp the semifinals and the finals.” Anna jumped in, analyzing the situation from a merchant's point of view. One that she was familiar with as a lot of betting houses had been having the same argument, each betting house taking the side that cost them the least money overall. Some even trying to argue both sides with different customers.

“He said it was good enough, but that I’d have to make sure his terms were a bit better since it was a bit murky.” Ajax said, he had been glad the bull beastkin had not only made the choice to join his house, despite being able to argue against it, but that he was also smart enough to try and gouge them for a better deal.

“Is that Fluffy?” Lexi quickly locked on to the massive shadow cat bringing the discussion to a halt.

She had of course had a chance to see Fluffy back during Ajax’s party but at that time she was not just the granddaughter of duke Manashaper but the representative of House Manashaper and it would have been unseemly for her to play around with a bond instead of conversing with other nobles.

This was not a restriction she was under now as she took off like a shot straight towards the massive black feline under the curious gaze of the rest of the class.

“Fluffy!” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around the neck of the beast. “You’ve grown up so much! Do you remember me? I was there around the time you got your bond.”

Despite Fluffy having grown in size and power he was still very much a young kitten in spirit as it took him only a few moments to recognize Lexi from as the girl who would fawn over him every time Tom took him into the command tent before he flipped down on his belly and managed to score himself a few treats from her spatial storage.

“Those are your rations for the exam, you shouldn’t be giving them to Fluffy.” Anna chastised her best friend. It came across as very hypocritical as she herself had also sneaked Fluffy a large steak from her own provisions.

While Fluffy was getting reacquainted with Lexi and Anna, Ajax had gotten to thanking the potential retainers for coming. He had already met them once for an interview but was now getting a much better lay of the land as they were now fully geared up for a delve.